Chinese New Year 农历新年——春节英文介绍

•
Pasting Spring Couplets
“The Spring Couplet”, also called “couplet” or “a pair of antithetical phrases”, is a special form of literature in China. The Spring Couplet is composed of two antithetical sentences on both sides of the door and a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription, usually an auspicious phrase, above the gate. The sentence pasting on the right side of the door is called the first line of the couplet and the one on the left the second line. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household will paste on doors a spring couplet written on red paper to give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival. In the past, the Chinese usually wrote their own spring couplet with a brush or asked others to do for them, while nowadays, it is common for people to buy the printed spring couplet in the market.
Sweeping the Dust
“Dust” is homophonic with “chen” in Chinese, which means old and past. In this way, “sweeping the dust” before the Spring Festival means a thorough cleaning of houses to sweep away bad luck in the past year. This custom shows a good wish of putting away old things to welcome a new life. In a word, just before the Spring Festival comes, every household will give a thorough cleaning to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new.
•
•
Transport during the Spring Festival Period
The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees, so transport in this special time is an unavoidable social problem.
• The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people's sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one. • The preparing work for Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Excitement and happiness are palpable this time of the year, and they reach the peak on lunar new year's eve. Time for celebration
special purchases for the Spring Festival
Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What's more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.
Laba Festival
Some large Buddhist temples woulBaidu Nhomakorabea offer Laba porridge to general public to show their faith to Buddha.
The 23rd day of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve. At this time, people offer sacrifice to the kitchen god. Now however, most families make delicious food to enjoy themselves. Preliminary Eve After the Preliminary Eve, people begin preparing for the coming New Year. This is called “Seeing the New Year in”.
Dragon Year
• Chinese ancestors invented the 10 Tian Gan (or heavenly stems) and 12 Di Zhi (or 12 earthly branches) for chronological purpose. Later, people used 12 animals to symbolize the 12 earthly branches in order to make things easier to memorize and the animals (Chinese Zodiac Sign) in order are the mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. You might found out that many Chinese people strongly believe that the time of a person's birth is primary factor in determining that person's characteristics. 2012 is Chinese dragon year. So we call this lunar new year the “Spring Festival of Dragon Year”.
On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge, a delicious kind of porridge made with more than 8 kinds of ingredients, such as glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job‘s tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko (the ingredient is different from place to place). As a result, we also call this day “Laba Festival”.
Spring Festival The Chinese New Year
This PPT is a simple introduction for Chinese Lunar new year.
Contents
• Dragon Year • Transport during the Spring Festival • Time for Celebration • Laba Festival • Preliminary Eve • Special Purchases for the Spring Festival • Sweeping the Dust • Pasting Spring Couplets • Pasting Paper-cuts and “Up-sided Fu” • Pasting New Year Prints • Dinner on the Eve • Staying Up Late on New Year's Eve • The CCTV New Year's Gala • Setting off Firecrackers • Breakfast in the New Year • New Year's Visit and Gift Money • Temple Fair • Lantern Festival • Activity of Lantern Festival
Pasting Paper-cuts and “Up-sided Fu”
• Paper-cuts, usually with auspicious patterns, give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival and express the good wishes of Chinese people looking forward to a good life. • In addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows, it is common for Chinese to paste the character “Fu(福)”, big and small, on walls, doors and doorposts around the houses. “Fu(福)” shows people’s yearning toward a good life. Some people even invert the character “Fu(福)” to signify that blessing has arrived because “inverted” is a homonym for “arrive” in Chinese. Now many kinds of paper-cuts and “Fu(福)” can be seen in the market before the Festival.